


It's Been a Long, Long Time

by MalevolentMagpie



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Established Relationship, I Made Myself Cry, Inspired by Music, Inspired by youtube comments, M/M, Memories, Nostalgia, Not Beta Read, Old Age, One Last Time, SHEITH - Freeform, Sad and Sweet, Sad with a Happy Ending, Song fic, nursing home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:01:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24010234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalevolentMagpie/pseuds/MalevolentMagpie
Summary: An old man spends a quiet afternoon in his nursing home.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 72





	It's Been a Long, Long Time

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [It's Been a Long, Long Time](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/615574) by Kitty Kallen. 



> Inspired by a YouTube comment on the song link above. (Yep, really.)
> 
> I'd recommend listening to the song while you read for maximum effect, unless for some strange reason you don't enjoy torturing your heart and tear ducts.

The golden glow of the afternoon filtered through the nursing home’s Bahama shutters, suffusing the space with a color like nostalgia. Few residents were left in the common space now, most having long since retired to their rooms. The only sound besides the ambient shuffling of the handful of staff handing out various people’s scheduled medications was an old phonograph against one corner whose grainy tones floated through the space and swirled along with the sparkling dust in the air that the sun’s last rays illuminated. 

_“Kiss me once, then kiss me twice, then kiss me once again. It’s been a long, long time…”_

The old man had pulled his wheelchair up to the window hours ago, and now the sunset had found him in the exact same position, resting his weathered face on his knuckles and his elbow on the windowsill. He wasn’t watching the scenery outside the window. His eyes weren’t that good anymore, and there wasn’t much to look at even if they had been - just a mediocre garden for the nursing home residents to visit, with a happy family of bluejays that frolicked noisily when you brought them something shiny. He simply stared, unseeing, remembering, and at times forgetting what it was he had been remembering.

_“Haven’t felt like this, my dear, since can’t remember when. It’s been a long, long time…”_

“Mr. Kogane?” he heard from beside him, and finally stirred to look at the orderly that had approached. 

“How many times do I have to tell you to call me Keith, Hunk?” 

Hunk just smiled, but for once there wasn’t the usual warmth and joy in it. “I heard the doc talked to you. How… how much longer?” 

Keith sighed. Youth was always so scared of the inevitable. They couldn’t imagine being so tired you just wanted to rest, gladly welcoming the last visitor with open arms. “Not much, now.” 

Hunk nodded solemnly. “How’s the pain?”

“Oh it’s great, getting bigger every day,” he grinned to himself, repeating an old, familiar set of words.

Hunk was about as amused as Keith had been when _he_ had heard them. “Do you need any more meds? I can sneak some extra from the pharmacy if the doc’s prescription isn’t enough.” 

Keith just waved him away. “It’s alright, Hunk. I’ve felt worse. Plus, it keeps me grounded. If I didn’t have it to distract me, I’d… think too much.” 

“Ok. Well, I’m about to get off my shift now, but I’ll see you tomorrow ok, Mr. Kogane? I’ll bring some of those Spanish playing cards we were talking about. We can play a few games!” 

The old man smiled softly at Hunk. The orderly was a truly kind-hearted person, perfectly suited for this job. Keith hoped it didn’t hit the poor boy too hard when he left. “Thanks Hunk, that sounds good. And for the last time, it’s _Keith_. Just Keith.” 

With a cheery wave, he was off, and then Keith was alone again. Truly alone. The last of the nursing home’s residents had trickled out, and the rest of the daytime staff had cleared out, likely convening with the night shift workers in some office somewhere.

 _“_ _Words can wait until some other day…”_

Keith continued staring through the window at some unseen memory when a warm, prickling feeling like a long-forgotten caress traveled up his spine. Something told him to turn around in his chair, and when he did, he slowly straightened up and lowered his hand. There was something of surprise and confusion in his face, but much more spoke of recognition and expected relief. 

A man stood tall at the door, a face and smile Keith knew better than his own. Always would. Eyes like liquid steel, an old faded scar crossing the bridge of a beloved nose. He was wearing his full dress uniform - _typical_ , Keith smirked - and looked much younger than he had when last he’d seen him.

_“Never thought that you would be standing here so close to me. There’s so much I feel that I should say…”_

“Took your damn time,” Keith said with a fond look. 

“Isn’t that my line?” the man said as he walked towards where Keith sat. He held one arm behind him, then leaned down to extend the other. “May I have this dance?”

Keith chuckled. “Those were the first words you ever said to me.” 

“I know.” 

“Well, I’ll tell you the same thing I did back then: I don’t dance.” 

“And then I say, ‘That’s okay; I’ll lead.’” The man took Keith’s hand and gently pulled him up off the wheelchair. Strangely, there was no creak in his knees, no pain in his back. For the first time in a long time, he stood up straight and steady, following his partner to the middle of their impromptu dance floor. 

“You lead, I follow. Isn’t that always how it was? How it is,” Keith whispered into a strong, familiar shoulder. He’d missed this so much. 

_“You’ll never know how many dreams I’ve dreamed about you, or just how empty they all seem without you…”_

They slowly rotated around the floor for a while following the phonograph’s melody, more to sink into each other’s touch than to dance. The wide room all around them seemed to glow golden and warm, brighter and brighter until the whole world disappeared and nothing existed beyond the two men and this space. 

“I missed you,” Keith finally uttered like a confession against his husband’s lips. “Ever since you left, it felt like I was looking for your face in every cloud, through every doorway, Shiro-” His voice broke.

“Shh,” Shiro soothed. “It’s alright now. It’s alright. You found me.” 

They stopped dancing. Shiro took his husband’s hands, now wrinkle-free and sporting a pair of black fingerless gloves that he had lost many years ago. Keith wiped away the remaining tears and smiled. Hand in hand, they walked through the door, the nursing home lobby, the courtyard, out to a nearby field and beyond. 

_Kiss me once, then kiss me twice, then kiss me once again..._

In the fading light of the sun, words lingered like a whisper on the breeze: 

“We won’t be separated?” 

“Never again.” 

~~~

When morning came, Hunk received the news with a burst of tears. It fell to him to clear Keith’s room, and he eventually set about the task with red-rimmed eyes, putting into a box the few belongings the old man had held onto: mainly just an old white-and-red leather riding jacket, some well-worn dog tags with a name Hunk didn’t immediately recognize, a freshly-sharpened dagger that Keith had apparently hidden under his mattress (Hunk sighed and shook his head), and a framed picture of two grinning young men looking lovingly into each other’s eyes. One was in a formal military uniform, the shorter one in a white tuxedo with a red rose tucked in his messy ink-black locks. Both stood under a flowering archway, rings and smiles gleaming bright in the golden light of the sunset off-camera. It was clear what the picture was. 

As Keith had no surviving family, his belongings were supposed to be donated, but the tags and the picture - having no monetary value - were to simply be thrown in the trash. Hunk couldn’t let that happen. That moment, those tags, had meant the world to two people, even if neither was _in_ the world any longer. So he took the picture and the tags home. The picture he placed on his mantelpiece. The dog tags he hung off of the frame. And there they stayed watching over a new family’s life, bringing a smile to every visitor that passed by, none of whom could help but be charmed by the pure love and happiness on the faces of the two men in the photo.

_Kiss me once, then kiss me twice, then kiss me once again..._

“Who’re those dudes in the frame, Hunk?” Lance once asked.

“Well, in the nursing home there was this crotchety but sweet old man named Keith…” 

_...It’s been a long, long time…_


End file.
